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Windows Explorer in Windows 7 has been significantly changed and improved since the days of Vista and XP. This article provides some of the more useful tips and tricks for getting the most out of Explorer.

Use the Backspace Key to Go Up Like Windows XP Did

Windows Explorer in Windows XP allowed you to move up a folder using the Backspace key. If you got used to that feature, you’re probably frustrated that it was removed in Windows 7. The Backspace key in Windows 7 moves you Back in the folder browsing history, not to the parent folder of the current folder.

Here’s a small program that allows you to use the Backspace key to go up a folder.

View Details and Previews for Files

When browsing through your folders and files in Explorer, it might be helpful to be able to view the contents of the files without opening the files and to view details about the files. The Preview pane and the Details pane allow you to do this. To turn on one or both of these panes, click Organize on the Explorer window and select Layout to display a submenu. If a pane on the submenu has a check mark next to it, it is currently being shown in Explorer. Turn the panes on and off by selecting them on the submenu. You can also press Alt + P to turn the Preview pane on and off.

Disable Thumbnail Previews

If Windows Explorer seems to be operating slower than usual, you can speed it up by disabling the thumbnail previews.

This can be done by turning on the Always show icons, never thumbnails option on the Folder Options dialog box, as we have previously shown:

You can also set the startup folder to other locations if you know the GUID (Globally Unique Identifiers) for the object or location you want it to default to. The following article provides more information on GUIDs:

Easily Take Ownership of Folders Using the Right-Click Menu

If you need to replace or edit system folders or files in Windows 7, you need to take ownership of them. This may occur during the installation or usage of some programs, among other times.

Taking ownership of a file or a folder is a complicated task, requiring many steps. However, there is an easy method of taking ownership of files and folders using the right-click context menu. The following article provides a downloadable registry hack you can apply that adds a Take Ownership option to the right-click menu.

Prevent Explorer from Making Click Sounds

If you have your sound turned on for various reasons, such as watching a movie or listening to music, and you need to do something in Windows Explorer, a click sound may interrupt your movie or music. However, you can turn off this click sound.

You can use this method for turning off other sounds in Windows, as well.

Add Applications to the Favorites List in Explorer

Windows 7 allows you to add your own folders to the list of Favorites in Explorer. What if you work in Explorer often and would like to start applications directly from the Explorer window? If you try to drag an application to the Favorites list, you get an error. However, there is an easy way around this.

The following article provides an easy method for adding applications to the Favorites list:

Access Hidden Options on the Right-Click Send To Menu in Explorer

When you right-click on a file in Explorer, the Send to submenu on the popup menu provides options for taking action on the selected file. You can send the file to a compressed folder, create a shortcut to the file on your desktop, fax or email the file, or send it to another folder.

However, there are additional options available on the Send to menu that are not visible by default. There is an easy way to view these extra options. Simply press the Shift key while right-clicking on the file.

See our article about this trick for information about adding your own options to the Send to submenu.

Open a Command Prompt Window from a Windows Explorer Folder

If you use the command prompt often to manage your files, there is an easy way to open a command prompt in the working directory you want from within Explorer. This is accomplished the same way as accessing additional options on the Send to menu, as mentioned above.

To open a command prompt at a specific directory, hold the Shift key down when you right-click on a folder and select the Open Command Window Here option. We wrote about this tip in the following article:

You can also go the other direction. If you have a command prompt window open to a specific directory, you can open the same directory automatically in a Windows Explorer window. The following article explains how to do this:

Add the Copy To and Move To Commands to the Right-Click Menu

If you transfer a lot of files among different folders, there are a couple of useful options you can add to the context menu in Windows Explorer to make this task easier.

We provided a downloadable registry hack that adds a Copy To folder option and a Move To folder option to the context menu in Explorer. Selecting one of these options displays a handy dialog box allowing you to select a folder to which you want to copy or move the selected file or folder. See the following article to download the registry hack:

NOTE: The article above about adding this registry hack manually shows this being done in Windows XP. This trick works in Windows XP, Vista, and 7.

Quickly Resize Icons and Change the View in Explorer

Do you change the view in Windows Explorer among the different sizes of icons or to details or list view often? If so, there is a shortcut that allows you to do this quickly and easily using the keyboard and mouse.

Simply hold down the Ctrl key while scrolling the mouse wheel in any folder in Explorer. We previously showed you this trick in the following article:

If you keep scrolling down, the icons get smaller until they switch to List, Details, Tiles, and then Content. This trick essentially scrolls through the options on the Change your view button in Explorer.

NOTE: This trick also works to change the size of the icons on the desktop icons.

Stay tuned for more useful tips on using Windows Explorer in Windows 7 next week!

Lori Kaufman is a freelance technical writer who likes to write geeky how-to articles to help make people's lives easier through the use of technology. She loves watching and reading mysteries and is an avid Doctor Who fan.

One trick I learned the other day is if you right click on an office document and choose new. It opens the same document but with a different file name so that you can easily edit the new document and save it as a different name.

Because Microsoft did this “update,” is that why Explorer keeps crashing for no reason? I do regular virus scans, run MalewareBytes regularly and I have done a complete scrub with Kaspersky’s Rescue disk, so tht cannot be the “dafault” reason I am finding when I search for “reasons” for the crash.

Please enlighten me, seeing that Microsoft seems not to be up to the task.

@S.J. Miller: I too have been having this problem for well over 2 months. [fyi folks: we are talking about WINDOWS EXPLORER file manager, NOT Internet Explorer here, I spent 20 minutes on the phone before realizing the extremely hard to understand ‘outsourced person’ was telling me how to stop IE from crashing … dur!] It started for me immediately after a MS issued ‘Tuesday’ update. And from what I read, so it has for a large number of people. I have tried every ‘remedy’ and ‘sure cure’ I could find on the internet, some quite elaborate, to no avail. I have gone to some very extreme measures (a special MS issued system integrity scan app that took over an hour to run), etc. etc. … ad nauseum. Finally MS assistance said I had a ‘conflicting 2nd-party program’. So I quite literally either uninstalled or disabled every single non-MS application or program on my computer [no easy or fun task!], I even disabled every Firefox add-on and plug-in just to be sure. As we used to say in the Air Force, NO JOY, when a mission objective was unsuccessful. I feel I am computer savvy, having repaired hardware and software problems and built-from-scratch probably a hundred computers in the past 18 years as a hobby. I’m no ‘noob’ at this. This problem is on a brand new, high-end Intel i-5 processor-based laptop. The only thing I haven’t done is a total ‘clean’ re-install of Win 7, which I would love to do at this point. So here’s the rub; I can only do a ‘back-up’ re-install because 99% of manufacturers, for the past several years, do not supply a physical, disc hard-copy of the OS with new machines. I have tried a ton of ‘forums’ to no avail, if any one reading this [shout out to fellow How-toGeek fans and friends!], then PLEEEEZ reply. Admittedly, the wrong place to ask this. If the HTG admin will allow this, contact me at quagmire[dot]longshanks@gmail[dot]com … and thanks if ya lasted through my long-winded gripe session! – Jay

@Jay and JS: Join the party! “Windows Explorer had stopped working/is not responding” had been my bosom buddy for the last several MONTHS, especially with Windows x32. It did get better on the x64 side after scanning with Avira Rescue disk (which, unlike Kaspersky and Bit Defender, updates at least daily and found a number of questionable files), but I’m still having issues with x32 if I try to work with more than three open folders at a time.

My plan at this point is to strip and reload the OSes on both computers and AVOID adding Updates for awhile, since it seems to me that that’s when things really started going South with both computers. It’s time-consuming, but you can find sites where it’s possible to add Updates a few at a time; I’ll give that a try and see what there is to see. Wish me luck.

How do you use the keyboard to get to the address line within Windows Explorer. I see that tab gets me there , but I can’t type free text. In WinXP, I could tab to the address line, type “c:\Program Files” and press enter — explorer would then move to that folder.

yeah geeks, nice tips…i moved from xp to 7 and like 7 a lot…except for explorer…just way too many cliks for me to move around in it.. but like another poster mentioned, explorer ++ … its great and i took to it in a couple minutes…now have it pinned to the task bar and have never used explorer since. and i use q-dir when i have lots of files to move around…the multiple panes work so easy. keep up the good work geeks!!